The Background of Suggestopedia

Suggestopedia is an unconventional teaching method developed in the 1970s

by Bulgarian teacher and psychiatrist, Dr. Georgi Lozanov.
As the name implies, Suggestopedia relies on the power of suggestion for
acquiring language knowledge. According to the theory, if students feel
relaxed and comfortable, they’ll be more receptive to learning new
information. This helps make language acquisition easier and more effective.
How Does It Work?
Instead of sitting at tables and desks, students relax in comfortable armchairs
or sit on the floor while the teacher reads to them in the target language.
During the readings, the lights or often dimmed and soft music is played in the
background—usually classical music or the sounds of nature. The purpose of
the background noise is to create a peaceful mood throughout the lesson.
The teacher reads the text as if it were a concert, using dramatic voices and
gestures to capture the students’ attention. Even if much of the vocabulary is
unfamiliar, learners will be drawn into the performance and should be able
to absorb the new words using contextual clues.
Because Suggestopedia is about creating a positive and pleasant experience,
students are freed from many of the negative associations they usually have
with learning.
This all sounds wonderful. But is there any real value to adding the
Suggestopedia method to your repertoire?
Advantages of Suggestopedia
Though we don’t have much data to support the overall effectiveness of
Suggestopedia, we do know that some aspects of it can be great for teaching
language.
Music can facilitate learning
Numerous studies have found that using music in the classroom, either as
background noise or as part of memorization exercises, improves learning
outcomes.
Music can reduce stress, assist in managing behavior and inspire creativity. It
also enhances concentration, making it easier for students to focus on
challenging activities.
The environment helps students relax
It’s easy to downplay or forget the importance of a comfortable and secure
classroom space.
The Suggestopedia method emphasizes a safe, comfortable space in which
students feel at ease and in which they enjoy learning. In the right
environment, students feel safe and cared about, which creates a positive
learning experience.
Physically, they have easy access to materials and resources that they need.
Emotionally, they feel comfortable to take risks without fear of judgment or
ridicule. The seating arrangement, decorations, sounds and the lighting all
contribute to motivating students without distracting them.
Reading out loud helps students remember new content
Reading a text or a dialogue to your students, as prescribed by the
Suggestopedia method, is a wonderful way to pre-teach new vocabulary and
review important material at the end of a lesson.
Reading with dramatic flair, as if you were part of a theatrical performance,
can make the experience more engaging and enjoyable. As a
result, students are more likely to pay attention.
Disadvantages of Suggestopedia
So if this method has so many benefits, why aren’t more people using
Suggestopedia?
Despite its obvious advantages, Suggestopedia does have a few drawbacks.
Here are some things to consider before diving head-first into a
Suggestopedia-driven lesson.
The wrong music can be a distraction
Studies show that music can actually hinder certain tasks, including
memorization.
For the most part, it’s music with lyrics that cause distractions. But some
students also get distracted by music that they don’t particularly like. In
situations like this, Suggestopedia can do more harm than good.
It’s important to keep this in mind when considering Suggestopedia as a
teaching style. After all, it’s unlikely that every student in your classroom will
like the same kind of music.
Suggestopedia relies on infantilization
In other words, Suggestopedia requires the student-teacher relationship to
resemble that of a parent and child for this method to work. The reason is that
Suggestopedia relies on the absolute authority of the teacher for the power of
suggestion.
If you’ve spent any time in the classroom, you know that not every student is
docile enough to regard the teacher as a figure with absolute authority. Some
students are more open to suggestion than others, especially as they get
older, and others want to challenge or interrogate conflicting views.
Suggestopedia lacks a clear structure
Education experts now know that setting clear, linear goals is a necessary
component to successful learning.
Teachers and students need a roadmap showing where they’ve been and
where they’re going next. However, the Suggestopedia method lacks the
structure to make this goal-setting process happen. For some students who
need a more structured learning environment, this teaching style can be
confusing or downright overwhelming.
It’s not always feasible to use Suggestopedia
Depending on where you teach, it simply might not be practical to furnish your
room with armchairs, special lighting and decorations. Moreover, schools that
stick to a more traditional educational model may not be receptive to adopting
an unorthodox teaching method like Suggestopedia.
How to Use Suggestopedia in Your Classroom
Despite these drawbacks, there are a lot of benefits to using Suggestopedia.
Here are some practical workarounds to help you reap the benefits of this
unusual method.
Experiment with different kinds of music
Before turning your classroom into a full-blown concert, try playing music in
the background during various learning activities and take note of how
students respond.
Do students perform better if a classical piece is played, or does a pop song
get them more motivated?
One of my favorites is this three-hour playlist of Mozart piano pieces. Another
good choice is to play simple noises in the background, like this 12-hour track
of water and bird sounds.
Also, notice which types of activities lend themselves well to background
music. Your students may find it helps them focus during paired dialogues, but
background music could become a distraction as they read silently.
Pay attention to physical elements of your classroom
If you’ve never given the setup and decor of your classroom much thought,
now’s a great time to do it.
Remember that every detail matters: the seating, lighting, decorations and
even the location of objects like bookcases and pencil sharpeners.
Everything needs to be arranged in a way that’s comfortable and welcoming—
try to avoid clutter.
While it may not be practical to give every student an armchair to sit in, you
might consider creating a comfy corner with a bookcase and a few beanbag
chairs.
Check out these reviews of affordable and classroom-friendly furniture to get
some ideas.
Read expressive dialogues in the target language
Bring out your inner thespian and give your language life by using
theatrical voices, gestures and exaggerated emotions. This will make the
vocabulary vivid and memorable, as well as create a fun learning environment
for you and your students.
If you have a textbook that you already use, you may find some good
dialogues there. Or you can expose your students to classic plays in the target
language written by renowned playwrights like Shakespeare, Miguel de
Cervantes and Molière.
Encourage your students to reach bigger goals
One of the core principles of Suggestopedia is that students will be able to
learn large amounts of vocabulary in little time.
In fact, Dr. Lozanov insisted that this method would result in students learning
the language three to five times faster than they would through other methods.
While his claim was never backed up by evidence, the method has helped a
lot of students improve their language-learning capabilities.
When using Suggestopedia, always be realistic about your classroom
objectives and mindful of your students’ capabilities, maintaining and
communicating high expectations shows that you believe in your students. By
encouraging learners to set more challenging goals, you promote a positive
learning environment that can motivate the class to work harder.
 
No language teaching method is perfect, but some are better in certain
situations. Suggestopedia is best used with students that don’t respond well to
a traditional, teacher-centered education. When used in combination with
other methods, Suggestopedia contributed to a more balanced learning
experience that appeals to various types of learners.
Remember, the best teaching method depends on your objectives and, most
of all, your students’ learning styles.

In brief

Lonny Gold is originally from Canada. His first contact with the method goes back to a
trip to Ottawa, in Canada, in 1978. It started with the Canadian government who was
using it, especially to teach French to English speaking civil servants. Lonny Gold
began to become more familiar with it in Paris, thanks to a woman called V. Saferis,
who brought it from Bulgaria to the West. 

The idea itself was originally dreamt up by Dr. Aleko Novakov and then popularised,
developed, expanded and promoted by Dr. George Lozanov, who is actually very well
known. He called the method Suggestopedia, because he defined that suggestion is all
of the micro-messages that come to a person when you are paying attention. It is the
micro-messages that make us feel safe and open or else closed and defensive.

 What is Suggestopedia?
Suggestopedia is a teaching method, which makes it possible for people to learn
three times as fast as they can under normal circumstances. It involves the creation of a
very safe environment in which students are allowed to explore, but they have to feel
safe. People can learn fast when they allow themselves to be a little out of their comfort
zone. A Suggestopedia teacher creates an environment where anything that is negative
is banned from the space and the students get enough lot of positive reinforcement
through the use of suggestion. Suggestion is any information that comes to you beneath
the level of your conscious perception. 

In terms of how it works I see four basic principles. The first is that students must never
been afraid of making mistakes. The second is that every piece of information has to be
linked to a positive emotion. The third one is that Suggestopedia teachers work with
peripheral perception - in other words, we orchestrate what students are going to see
without actually realising that they are seeing it. This speeds up learning, because
everything is organised so that their memory hooks ideas along the way. Finally, the
forth principle is that we always simulate the information before we analyse it.

What it looks like?

In terms of what it looks like, we usually use texts in the form of plays and these are
read with classical music; then there are a lot of games with the texts. 

We spend most of the time playing pedagogical games that the students shouldn’t
forget, because they are fun, they are stimulating and they are interesting. We finish
most of the lessons with the use of Baroque music ,which is used to change the brain
configurations and slow it down, because when a person is productive he is not
necessarily receptive. We have to bring the brain rhythms down to between 8 and 12 Hz
in order for people to actually take in information much quicker. 

Basically, it is about planning the different phases of learning and using different
activities, different forms of music and so on in order to speed up the whole process. 

Fundamentally it is about the relationship between the teacher and the students and the
quality of the exchanges between the students, because once an environment is
completely safe, people become less guarded and they are no longer busy looking for
faults with each other. There is an atmosphere of mutual support, which means that
people let themselves take all the information in. 

What we need to remember?

The important thing to remember is that when people experience fear there are
chemicals that are released in the brain - mostly Adrenaline and Cortisol that stop the
blood from getting up to the upper levels of the Neocortex and this is the problem not
just in learning, but in life. 
When people are afraid, the brain shuts down and they are not open to take in new
information, develop new skills or do anything they have not got solid experience doing.
In Suggestopedia, we have to make people feel safe, because that is the way they will
remain open. We also have to plan the distortions that are going to take place between
one lesson and another.  Every time the pupils sleep, there is a distortion that takes
place, because whether we know or not we dream and the dream is a distortion.
Dreams distort time, distort space, and the teacher has to plan for how these distortions
are going to impact on what they are teaching. I think the best metaphor is that of a
potter who makes beautiful pots, but before they are going to the oven they just look as
if they are boring brown. It is only after they come out of the oven, 24 hours later, that
we actually have all the beautiful colours that are going to delight us, because that is the
final product, the plate, the cup or whatever it is. That is why the teacher has to know
enough of how the students minds are going to work and feed in the information so that
after the distortions, we end up with distortions that are just part of the way we live, the
way we are built.

Suggestopedia is most commonly used in foreign language learning and  at primary

level, but it could be used for a lot of other subjects however, we would need specialists
in those fields to take the philosophy behind Suggestopedia and work with the subject
matter that they know well.

What is needed to be a Suggestopedia teacher?

The qualities that are needed in a Suggestopedia teacher are very different from the
qualities needed in a traditional teacher. Traditional teachers can be focused on what
they know and they try to transfer what they know to students. A Suggestopedia teacher
isn’t really so much an expert in their field as an expert in communication. They have to
know how to motivate the students. They have to know how to give positive
reinforcement and basically to show at every second of every class, to every student
how amazing they are. They have to get the students to just surprise themselves. They
have to get the students to do things that they have not done before with the rest of the
class as witnesses. It is quite common that people do extraordinary things and next day
they say: “No no it was not so extraordinary”. What we need is 10 or 12 other people
shouting at themselves: “Yes what we did yesterday was extraordinary”. 

We are basically getting people to redefine who they are and of what they are capable.
The main thing is to keep people totally surprised by how much more they were able to
do than what they thought they could do. For that we need very exceptional teachers;
teachers who are not afraid of taking risks. Teachers who are not control freaks, but
who can adapt with the movement in a class, while maintaining control. When students
come to class the ideal thing is for them to wonder what exciting things are going to
happen today. So what we need are teachers who are not afraid of not knowing. In
other words, if a teacher just does not have the answer to something, that is not a
problem, the teacher can tell the students: “I do not know the answer to that, but I will
tell you tomorrow”. That creates a kind of complicity, a kind of group feeling with the
teacher inside. The teacher is not apart from the group; he is in the group.
When did it come to Bulgaria?

Everything started in January 2013. We decided to do a course in Suggestopedia in

Bulgaria. Amongst the Bulgarian students I had Teodora Nenova (the principal of British
School of Sofia). She came with 4 or 5 of the BSS teachers and after that she decided
to introduce the method to a lot of other teachers and she invited me to come back to
Bulgaria. It happened around July 2013 and after that we begun running regular teacher
training sessions in order for the school to develop greater flexibility, psychological
sensitivity and greater creativity in all the classes that are going on.

What we want at British School of Sofia is a great openness on the part of the
students to each other, to the teachers and to the subject matter they are learning.

Suggestopedia and the role that it plays in the BSS is extraordinarily important, because
in a society where we are giving up more and more control of our lives. Through sites
like Facebook and other social networks almost everybody knows everything about us,
where we are kind of pinned down to fulfilling other people expectations of who we are
and how we are supposed to behave, and how we must conform to the different groups
that we are in, the last frontier of freedom is inside our own unconscious minds where
our creativity is based. I thing it is only possible by developing our perception of who we
are and what we are capable of that would be able to realise who we really can be and
sort out for ourselves the kinds of lives that we really want to lead. I see this and Dr.
Lozanov was very much in agreement with this. His philosophy with new systems was
about giving yourself what you needed in order to have the freedom you need in order
to live very very happy life.